This invention relates to interactive television program guides, and more particularly, to techniques for providing local advertising with such interactive television program guides.
Passive television program guides provide a scrolling or paged list of television program listings on a dedicated television channel. A television user may view the television program listings by tuning to the dedicated channel. The upper portion of a passive program guide display may be used to display advertising videos and associated text descriptions. The content of the text descriptions may be targeted toward particular regions.
Interactive television program guides allow television users to perform more advanced operations, such as displaying program listings in formats that are selected by the user, genre searching, pay-per-view ordering, etc. Interactive program guides are typically implemented on microprocessor-based set-top boxes. Program listings data is transmitted to the set-top boxes from a centralized data distribution facility via the user""s cable system headend. The program listings data is typically stored in memory in the set-top box, where it may be accessed by the interactive program guide.
Interactive program guides may be used to display advertisements, as described in Knudson et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/034,939, filed Mar. 4, 1998, Knudson et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/070,604, filed Apr. 30, 1998, Knudson et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/070,555, filed Apr. 30, 1998, and Boylan, III et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/070,700, filed Apr. 30, 1998, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. Interactive program guide advertisements provide the user with useful information on various products and services. For example, interactive program guide advertisements may be used to promote upcoming television programs. Interactive program guide advertisements may also be used to promote non-programming products and services.
Because interactive television program guide advertisements may be distributed nationally from a central facility, such advertisements are suitable for promoting products and services on a national basis. If interactive program guide advertisements are distributed only on a national basis, however, users will not be provided with as much useful local advertising information as might otherwise be possible.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an interactive television program guide system in which users may be provided with local program guide advertising.
This and other objects of the invention are accomplished in accordance with the principles of the present invention by providing a system in which local (i.e., non-global) advertisements are provided to interactive television program guides that are implemented on the user television equipment associated with a television distribution facility.
The data for the local advertisements may be distributed to the interactive television program guides in a number of ways. For example, local advertising data may be included in a global data stream that is transmitted from a main facility to multiple television distribution facilities. The global data stream may also contain global advertising data and program guide data. The television distribution facilities distribute the global data stream to the user television equipment. The interactive program guides in the user television equipment may extract the local advertising data that is addressed to that user television equipment or to its associated television distribution facility.
Another approach involves inserting local advertising data into the global data stream. Local advertising data may be inserted into a portion of the bandwidth of the global data stream that is reserved for local advertisements. Local advertising data may also be inserted into the global data stream by overwriting certain global advertisements. If desired, local advertising data may be transmitted from the television distribution facility to the user television equipment using a separate data stream. These advertising distribution schemes are illustrative. Any suitable form of digital multiplexing may be used to distribute global and local advertisements on single or multiple data streams if desired.
Local advertisements may be displayed on the user television equipment by the interactive television program guide. Local advertisements may be displayed whenever a user selects a displayed global advertisement. A local advertisement that is displayed in this way may have content that is related to the content of the selected global advertisement. If desired, the program guide may cycle global and local advertisements on the user television equipment. Local advertisements may also be shown in place of certain global advertisements if desired.
Further features of the invention, its nature and various advantages will be more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.